TJie Canada Grouse. 205 



THE CANADA GROUSE, Dcndragapus (Elliot) canadensis, 

 (Linn). SOME REMARKS AS TO ITS SCARCITY, 

 FEARLESSNESS, ITS HABITAT, AND ITS FEEDING 

 ON THE TAMARACK, Larix Americana, Michx. 



^ Read November x, 1887. 



By Wm. Hubbell Fisher. 



The home of the Canada Grouse, familiarly known as the 

 Spruce Partridge, is the forests and swamps of the northern portion 

 of this Continent. The territory it inhabits includes the northern 

 portions of the United States from the coast of Maine as far west as 

 the Rocky Mountains — and in British America as far north as 

 Alaska. In northern New York, one may travel many a long day 

 without meeting with a single specimen. The universal verdict of 

 all the guides and hunters whom I have met is to the effect that it 

 is a very rare bird. 



You will doubtless see a hundred specimens of the ruffed 

 grouse before you will meet with a single Canada grouse. Baird 

 states that it inhabits spruce forests'and swamps. I was at Dunbar's 

 Hotel, in the Adirondack region, on Stillwater, at the junction of 

 Beaver River and Twitchell Creek, in Lewis County, New York, 

 on the 31st of Aug., 1887. The day was declining when we heard 

 several shots, which were supposed by Dunbar's folks to be a 

 signal to send a boat over after a party coming out from Smith's 

 Lake, or Muncie's. Not long after the party appeared, and among 

 them was a Mr. C. N. Chapman, of Marathon, New York. He 

 had shot a Canada grouse with his revolver. He stated that when 

 first seen the bird was on a limb above him, that he shot and brought 

 it to the ground. He did not teil me that he shot it after it fell to 

 the ground, but from the bullet hole I found in the back of the 

 bird, I am of the opinion that he gave it its death stroke after it 

 had come to the earth. He stated that the bird did not appear to 

 be wild or exhibit fear. 



Before leaving Dunbar's, I took a boat and rowed over to 

 where this partridge was shot. The overflow caused by the erec- 

 tion of the State dam on the Beaver River environed two sides of 

 this tract. The locality was damp, gloomy, and wild; gnarled 

 trunks and dead branches on the ground ; bare dying trees, some 

 deciduous hardwood trees in leaf, and some evergreens, made up 



